DBB Administrative Announcement

I am heading to Ireland for the next two weeks. But through the magic of the internet I will be posting right up until Saturday. Andrew Dannehy will be writing previews for each of the other teams in the NFC North next week and Reverend Dave may even be weighing in from time to time.

I will return on Monday September 7th with my annual Fifty Prognostications, Pontifications & Ponderings on the 2015 NFL Season and then we’ll dive into the 2015 season.

Aaron Rodgers & I Share Common Ground

“It’s difficult to lose a guy like that in a meaningless game,” Rodgers said, via ESPN.com. “I think a lot of players around the league probably do [dislike preseason games]. At least cut it down, maybe, to a couple.”

Okay, one comment. He’s right. Players don’t want these games. Fans don’t want to pay for these games. But none of this will change until the players go into a labor negotiation with ownership and actually negotiate. You know, ask for stuff and then fight for that stuff.

In August of 2005 I self-produced my first play, Shore Points, at the Irish Arts Center in New York. It was a limited run but still ranks amongst the most exciting experiences of my life. I decided over the run to sell Coors Light cans in the lobby for the powerful, almighty “suggested donation” as a means of erasing at least some of the credit card debt I was quickly accruing. My family came. My friends came. Friends of my family came. Family of my friends came. And they all drank. A lot.

I took the cash and went to Ireland with Noah Brier, co-founder of this website, in October of that year. We were in a town called Dundalk on Sunday October 16th. Dundalk like many Irish towns is in a Catholic coma on Sundays aside from a few pubs specializing in fine Sunday roasts serving creatures most of us find cute. No smart phones. No open internet cafes. Nothing. And the Bears were playing the Vikings at noon CT.

We found a pay phone. And for three hours continually called a friend in New York. Every fifteen minutes or so. We didn’t stop calling until Thomas Jones ran in a longish touchdown early in the fourth quarter, making the game 21-3. Updates at an Irish payphone. More than $40 spent. That’s how much I care about the Chicago Bears. That passion led to the creation of this website a few weeks after I arrived back in the states.

For the last three weeks, for the first time in my life, I have watched the Chicago Bears play football and not cared an iota about the result. They have played the care out of me. They are a nothing team led by nothing men deserving nothing from their dedicated fans.